Rarotonga, Cook Islands: Clocking Off

At 3.20 in the afternoon the clock on
the bus taking us from the airport to the hotel reads 9.07.

This could be an early and welcome sign
that things here in the Cook Islands -- as in most such balmy places
in the Pacific -- run to a different clock.

And so it proves a few
hours later when I am sitting in the bar at cocktail hour.

The hotel is heavily booked so we have
been advised to make a reservation for dinner. Because we are a large
and flexible wedding party, I make a booking for 12 people for 7pm.
But already we too are running to “island
time“, so maybe we’ll
laze around in the pool-side bar chatting for a little longer and
turn up some time after that.

That’ll be
okay. It’s “island
time”.

No chance: at 6.30 an abrasively cheery
woman from the restaurant comes over and says we have to go through
now as she needs our tables for other guests later.

I tell her about
the 7pm booking and she says with abrupt but smiling efficiency
before she turns on her heel, “Okay, no
rush, just go through in the next 10 minutes”.

So . . . the much acclaimed lazy “island
time” can run fast too?

Indeed, and run weird.

It rains for two
days straight and in the absence of anything else to do we retreat to
our room and the television. The in-house movies are sometimes on
fast-forward so Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall jabber away like
The Chipmunks and The Big Sleep is over in about 20
minutes. Bruce Willis in something we cannot decipher looks like a
sprinter on speed, his small sidekick like a mouse on meth.

Meanwhile outside the minutes drag like
hours in the traditional “island time”
way.

My friend from Avarua, the main town on
Rarotonga which is little more than a conglomeration of retail
outlets and couple of cafes, says he’ll
come around 5pm.

He turns up at 7pm.

A shop sign in the hotel says “Open
9 - 5“.

It opens around 11ish and closes
by 4pm. No one worries, this is “island
time“.

Only cocktail hour at 5pm seems fixed
and despite the absence of a functioning body clock, now bewildered
by swims at dawn and evening walks through tropical gardens, I still
manage to make that with diligent efficiency.

The days drift by, punctuated by meals.
Time is flexible, two hours can take all day, and the days disappear
into one another.

A week later I am in the lobby settling
the bill when an Australian approaches the desk. He appears
unnaturally tense in this relaxed setting.

He says quietly but forcefully to the
woman behind the counter that he really needs to get into the safe in
his room. He says pointedly he has been asking for three days for
someone to come and prise it open as it seems to be jammed. He says
he needs their passports out of it as they leave on Monday.

It is only Saturday, but given no one
has done anything about it so far he sees the days slipping away and
a problem looming.

The woman says someone will come, and
at that moment the security guy who deals with such things emerges
lazily from a back office.

The Australian engages him: you’d
said you be there yesterday and didn’t
show up, so when can you come and open my safe?

The guy says he’ll
be there in 10 minutes.

The Australian holds his ground: but
we’ll be on the beach in 10 minutes, can
you come now?

The guy doesn’t
answer and the Australian insists.

The guy says he’ll
come some time this morning.

The harried Australian says, okay I
won’t go to the beach so you’ll
come in 10 minutes then?

The guy nods and wanders around the
desk and into the lobby. They meet on the pathway, in one direction
is the Australian’s room.

The Australian is edgy but trying to be
calm, he goes for one final confirmation: so are you coming in 10
minutes then?

The security guy says yes sir, he’ll
be there some time this morning.

The Australian’s
shoulders sag.

The security guy ambles off in the
other direction, the Australian goes to the beach.

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